Waterford's Imagine Arts Festival launches milestone 25th programme on Culture Night
Imagine Arts launched their 25th festival programme on Culture Night. Photo: Waterford In Your Pocket
Imagine Arts Festival launched its 25th anniversary programme at Bank Lane last Friday, September 18, marking a quarter of a century since the festival's foundation.
The date was chosen deliberately to fall on Culture Night, organisers said, with this year's edition of the festival running from October 20 to 25 in venues throughout Waterford City.
The launch was officially opened by Deputy Mayor Cllr Jim Darcy on behalf of Waterford City and County Council, with remarks from Festival Chairperson Paul Dower and Festival Director Sinéad Dunphy.
At the centre of this year's programme is Imagine's artists in residence and commissioned artist programmes, introduced by Festival Director Sinéad Dunphy in 2024.
For the first time in the festival's history, the artists in residence week will run entirely as Gaeilge, with musician Síomha Brock and writer-performer Ciara Ní É developing new work together over the course of the festival before sharing it in a public showcase.
Alongside them, Waterford multidisciplinary artist Chris Falconer, working under the alias Waiting Space, returns as this year's commissioned artist.
Falconer has been developing 'What Persists', a series of new tape-based musical pieces marking the festival's 25th anniversary, which audiences can experience throughout the week at the main festival hub.
"Since I introduced our Artists in Residence and Commissioned Artist programme in 2024, giving space for artists to create and experiment has been central to what this festival does, and it keeps going from strength to strength," said Festival Director Sinéad Dunphy.
"This year's 25th anniversary programme is a whopper - it's a genuine celebration of the very best of the arts, and proof that this festival goes beyond simply presenting work: we're here to let creativity and imagination breathe and grow."
"We get excited by all of it, it's really hard to say one over another," Festival Director Sinéad Dunphy said when asked what she's most looking forward to from this year's line-up.
That being said, she did mark Will Flanagan and Eddie Kay's immersive circus-theatre production 'The Scattering' as a must-see event.
The installation runs at the Festival Hub all week, with live performances Thursday to Sunday, she said, and has something for everyone to enjoy.
"You can just walk in off the street and join us any day of the festival and be able to walk through what becomes his stage on four nights of the festival," she said, "That to me is really interesting because we're kind of giving the general public a stage for them to walk through and discover and feel.
"We're bringing the public into the art, not just showing it to them."
Allowing people to access arts and culture in a different way is a major theme of the Imagine Arts Festival, with St Patrick's Gateway hosting the Lunchtime Theatre Series this year as another example, featuring three brand new one-act plays from Waterford writer-performers Martina Collender, Nicola Spendlove and Steven Walsh.
This year's festival hosts a programme packed full of music, art, culture and heritage, with Waterford artist Paul Savage launching his second album as Whozyerman? at Bank Lane, and the iconic festival closes on Sunday night with The Legendary Dead Pub Trail, a citywide trail of live performance running from Revolution to The Reg.
To celebrate a landmark 25 years, Imagine Arts will host an anniversary cabaret on Saturday, October 24, at Bank Lane.
Curated by Shauna Farrell and Wayne Power, and built entirely around Waterford talent, the cabaret will celebrate all of the "passion and courage it took to take a chance and create something new" 25 years ago.
"Waterford City and County Council has supported Imagine since its earliest years, and we continue to do so because we see, year after year, what it delivers - for our artists, for footfall and trade in our city centre, and for Waterford's reputation as a city that takes its culture seriously," said Deputy Mayor Cllr Jim D'Arcy.
"It's fitting that Imagine chose Culture Night to launch this milestone programme - Waterford has a genuine 25-year story of its own to add to the national conversation about the arts tonight.
"Twenty-five years in, this programme is rooted in Waterford, built on strong new commissions, and it's an enormous credit to everyone who has worked on it," said Festival Director Sinéad Dunphy.
"None of this happens without artists who keep saying yes to Waterford, and a small, generous production team who make it real every October."
Tickets for Imagine Arts Festival 2026 are available now at www.imagineartsfestival.com. The full programme is also available to view and download on the website.
It wasn't only the organisers of Imagine Arts bringing art, culture and heritage to the city on Friday evening, with Culture Night events taking place in venues, streets and unexpected spaces all over the city.
From music and poetry in motion bringing local musicians and poets on board Waterford City bus routes, to after hours performances at Theatre Royal.
A new festival tasters strand was one of the standout events, where audiences got a behind the scenes look at Spraoi Studios, with a tour through the workshop, rehearsal and costume rooms.
Garter Lane Arts Centre also held an open studios event, where visitors could meet resident artists and see their work as it was being made.
